How To Use Your Concrete Grinding Tools

Concrete floors have become extremely popular over the years and have become more common in commercial and residential settings. One of the main attractions of this floor type is that it does not require a lot of maintenance, but it does require daily cleaning and care to retain its shine.

Polished concrete is achieved using a specialized machine that strips the old and soiled concrete to unearth a shiny and new layer.

To achieve polished concrete, concrete grinding is necessary, and this necessitates the correct equipment. Here are the different grinder types that can assist you in grinding your own concrete floors.

Concrete Grinding Tool Types

Hand-Held Grinders

These grinders are smaller and mainly used for grinding work that is minor. These tools are dustless with one head and measure between 5 to 7-inches in diameter. This tool is versatile and quite common and mainly used for domestic purposes. You can also use a hand-held grinder to remove irregularities or paint from your concrete floors or surfaces. This tool is unable to take the place of the walk-behind machines that are mainly used to clean larger concrete sections.

Multiple-Held Grinders

These grinders feature horizontally-rotating discs which perform a variety of tasks. One of the most important aspects of these grinders is there different attachments that can be attached according to your requirements. These attachments are numerous and designed to perform a variety of different applications.

Dustless Grinders

These grinders come with dust covers that serve the purpose of discarding dust that collects inside the cloak. The grinders offer you a way to save time you would have spent cleaning and offer numerous features that allow you to perform tasks efficiently and gracefully.

Instructions On How To Grind Concrete

The grinding machines designed for this specific purpose come equipped with specialized disks that are embedded with diamond-bits that have the abilities to grind the concrete down and to achieve a desirable shine. This tool type makes use of polishing disks of a fine-grit to provide a smooth and sleek appeal to your floors.

To begin with, coarser grits are attached to the machine to drain-out flaws and minor stains. This tool prepares the floors for further cleaning and smoothing. Once this stage is completed, the process can take up to 3 to 4 passes to ready the floors for a final polish. These processes depend entirely on the concrete type. Certain concrete types achieve their best shine with less cleaning, while tougher concrete can take more counts to achieve a polished shine. The advanced stages of polishing can necessitate polishing disks that have finer grits of between 1800 to 3500 grits.

To begin with, start with 1800 grits polishing disk, and turn on your water hose to apply around a ½ inch of water across a 5-foot area. Switch off the water supply, followed by running your concrete grinder over the area until the water has completely dried up. Now move onto the next section of flooring until the entire area has been covered using the same methodology.

Once you have completed this step, first unplug your concrete appliance and attach a finer grit disk following the very same process as mentioned above to achieve the next level of shine and polish. Let the tool pass over the wet area and ensure the water has dried out which will leave the floor shiny and completely even. Follow the steps until you have successfully polished the entire area of flooring.

Switch off the machine again and now attach the 3500- grit polishing disks and follow the same steps again. It is important that you ensure that the floors are wet every time you use the different concrete-polishing tools. This last disk should provide the highest glossiest shine that you have been looking to achieve. Once the desired shine has been achieved, mop the area clean.

Dry And Wet Methods Of Concrete Grinding

Concrete grinding involves 2 different methods that include wet or dry. With the wet method, the use of water is needed in order to cool off the diamond-grits and to clean the dust that is created from the grinding process. For this method of grinding, the water serves the purpose of a type of lubricant that decreases friction and increases the life-span of the polishing tools and equipment, especially the disks that can melt from the extremely high temperatures.

The dry method of concrete grinding involves a tool that comes equipped with a separate-provision that retains the dust created inside a cover. This ensures no mess is left behind. In many cases. A combination of both methods is used to grind concrete to the desired and finest shine on the floors or concrete surfaces. In most cases, it is advisable to use dry grinding to start off with and then move onto wet grinding to finish and clean the areas completely.

Understanding Bonds

The most important understanding when you work with metal-bond tooling is to know what these bonds are. This is an important factor to ensure you get the very most from your tools. It is also important to understand that concrete has a variety of differences, and the main difference is the hardness. The hardness of a concrete is typically measured using either a scratch test or a PSI.

The different bonds have been designed to work with varying levels of concrete hardness. These bonds are what wear down as you are grinding to expose the diamond grits that perform the task of grinding. If you are using the incorrect bond you run the risk of burning through the tool to fast or glazing over. For this reason, ensure you are using the correct bond to match up to the hardness of the concrete.

Special Precautions

It is very important to make sure that your polishing equipment is turned off and unplugged at the wall before you change the grit-polishing disks in order to avoid the risks of a possible electrical shock. It is also important to wear the right gear. This includes long overalls, rubber boots and gloves to prevent the risk of damages or harm that can come to your legs and hands due to the dust and heat. Before you start, also check your grinding tools for any missing components, chips and noticeable cracks.

EndNote

Need more advice? You can always give your local Concrete Drilling Experts for more detailed information and tips!